I am new to HW, I did my first steps with ., built my own console... The result for me as electronic organ allergical was that I could not stay that much practicing on it. BTW my organ setup is (still) 3 umx 610, with case in my own wooden case, pedal from a well know organ builder, midified with a casio ma-150, interface midi-usb, computer core i5 with 16 GB and 4 speakers from Thonet wander model stark (not that bad...).

So I want to upgrade to HW and 1-2 good organs. I see that there is also releases, which add surely to the realism. German barock Zoeblitz or Altenbruch, romantic from Piotr Grabonski maybe...

My question is: what midi keyboards / controllers come with releases from factory? I suppose this is a note off velocity. But in the jungle of so many brands, I have no choice but ask the ones here would did the experience and are satisfied.

The releases are recorded into the sample set so that while playing, you can experience the effects of playing in the room where the physical instrument is. This is more a necessity where the original acoustics are generous.

Hauptwerk provides a means to truncate the release tails and I used this feature to remove the effects of playing in the original space since my VPO is in a church that has 1.4s reverberation and I didn't want the sound fading toward the speakers rather than decaying naturally in the sanctuary.

I think (and could be wrong...) that the determining factor on which release is chosen while playing has to do with how long a note has been held rather than the velocity of the attack or release. The reason I think this is that the sample set I play on Sundays has only one recorded attack and two release tails. My keyboards are capable of sending velocity information but it is ignored.

If a rank has multiple releases (and you loaded them), then the release sample is chosen dynamically when you let go of a note. But it has nothing to do with a keyboard release velocity, which isn't used by any Hauptwerk samplesets I know of.

The release sample that sounds when your keyboard sends note off is determined by how long you held the note. A staccato note gets a shorter release tail than a longer note. So you probably don't need keyboards that send a note off velocity. (I don't know if theatre organ samplesets might use that, however.)

If there are multiple attack samples, the attack that sounds when you press a note is determined by the keyboard note on velocity as you would expect.

Ok many thanks to all. I read the links too and sit more. And I am extremly disappointed, maybe HW and the VPO's editors will take this in the next time as wishable updates.

Considering the tracker as the most interesting pipe organ variant to practice, a VPO becomes an interesting practice insttrument when its simulate a tracker, or at least the most of it. Practice on an electric action is not bad, but there is really better. I know very well that in some lands, most organs have electric action, but why not use the VPO to help organists access this more "organic" relation with the sound? ...

When I depress a key (on a tracker organ), I get very different comportments of the init of the tone. Same when I release the note. I can depress a note for long and release very fast. This is part of articulation, and important for interpretation and improvisation in baroque music.

Also I would like to have at least (on trackers VPO'S) some combinations of stops, beginning with the most used, with their own attacks and releases. Because on the chest, the attacks and releases have a different comportment if I pull 8+4+2 or the electronique combination of 8 and 4 and 2. I guess this is more and more feasible (according to the possibilities of RAM)

There are sample sets which include the speech faults of tracker organs based on velocity. There are MIDI keyboards and encoders which handle velocity though for attack and not release. Which combinations have you tried and in what sense were you dissatisfied? It seems like we are having a discussion that is all theory without practical implementations. In reality there is not a perfect solution for the tracker feel (touch) and the release speech defects of tracker organs have not been emulated. Is that a cause for "extreme disappointment"?